Biden power grab will cost Mississippi’s healthcare patients

In a shameless attempt to enrich the pharmaceutical industry, the drunk with power Biden administration and its allies in Congress are trying to take power away from the Senate Commerce Committee.

This would present nothing but bad news for the great people of this state who rely on the Senate Commerce Committee's judgment to protect their wallets and pocketbooks.

The bill that would allow the Biden administration to do this, the PBM Transparency Act, would essentially give Biden’s Federal Trade Commission the authority to raise our prescription drug costs on a moments’ notice. It would do this by allowing the commission to regulate pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), little-known but important groups that Mississippi’s health plans hire to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry, reducing the cost of their products at the pharmacy counter.

With Casey Mulligan, the former Chief Economist to President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, recently finding that PBMs save consumers considerable sums of money a year, this is not welcome news.

Mississippi already knew this because when the FTC was in better hands, the commission warned the Mississippi State House that implementing such stifling red tape would likely increase our prescription drug prices. Ultimately, Mississippi listened to its concerns and refused to pass this pharmaceutical industry-pushed bill. Yet, puzzlingly, the Biden FTC has formally annulled the FTC’s previous advocacy for PBMs and is trying to convince Congress to give the commission the power to regulate them.

While it's unclear why the Biden FTC has issued such a staunch, hypocritical reversal of the commission’s previous position on PBMs, the Biden administration’s cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, whose products it not only pushed but mandated public employees use during the COVID pandemic, may present some clues.

Make no mistake: the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most powerful interest groups in the country, and its lobbyists are not shy in providing politicians with plenty of financial and political considerations to get their way. And that’s exactly why Congress — not unelected Biden bureaucrats — is supposed to regulate the healthcare industry.

Unlike Biden administration bureaucrats, the people choose their members of Congress. Come election time, can fire them should they choose to prioritize the concerns of special interests. But if the PBM Transparency Act is passed into law, all of that will change.

The Biden FTC is the same commission that has been accused of going after Elon Musk and other conservatives strictly for their political beliefs. It’s the same one that recently rescinded the consumer welfare standard so it can attack private businesses even if they’re not harming consumers. With all of this in mind, is giving this commission more power something that anyone in this state should want?

Over half of Mississippians are already either very worried or somewhat worried about the price of prescription drugs. At the same time, a third of this state has reported either not filling a prescription, cutting pills in half, or outright skipping doses due to their cost. The last thing the people of this state need is the Biden administration compounding their very valid concerns about healthcare affordability.

The Senate Commerce Committee is supposed to make healthcare regulatory decisions as massive as this one, not President Biden’s cohorts. Here’s hoping the Senate Commerce Committee stands up for their authority and jurisdiction. The fate of many Mississippians’ healthcare access may depend greatly on it.

— Larry Swales is the Chancery Clerk of Rankin County.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this opinion mentioned Sen. Roger Wicker as the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee. Wicker has been omitted from the column as his office stated he has stepped down from his role as ranking member of the Commerce Committee to take over as ranking member at Armed Services.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Biden power grab will cost Mississippi’s healthcare patients